WSJ medical reporter Ron Winslow looks at the causes of and prognosis for a broken tibia, the injury suffered by University of Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware. Photo: Getty Images

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... where is the best of all clear from the University of Louisville she ... suffered a serious leg fracture after ... waiting we went to block a shot this film is called to the ... one doctor told me appeared to break above the third of the way down but it's between the Nyonya ankle ... so this is a very rare occurrence in sports actually ... orthopedic surgeons frequently C ... compound fractures ... among victims of auto accidents of motorcycle accidents and other trauma ... so what caused this is a big ... open to speculation but most people said there were two possible reasons ... one he just landed funny ... the other is that it's possible ... that he had a stress fracture ... in his bone ... hadn't been previously detected clinically ... coach Pitino ... was quoted as saying that there was no previous condition ... in his leg and and that something could be the case ... for what could be something that ... nobody ... knew we had a dress for a free body to detect ... there's a lot of ... work has been done to develop treatments for this problem common treatment is actually to insert arrived on the middle of the bone ... that stabilizes it ... and bone tools while this titanium rod ... to get back on record with about three months for the bone to heal ... and then about six months after that he is probably ready ... to resume sports activities ... then it would take ... um a lot of work and no insurance than normal ... conditioning ... to to get back ... on his feet fully him to be ready to compete at a level that he has ... to be between six months in the year ... in a week or the end of the year before he would be ... ready to compete ... on the basis that he was right before the injury ...